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Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Mar 28th, 2020 at 12:25:46 PM EST
The number of new confirmed cases of Covid-19 surged by 302 yesterday, the highest daily increase so far. There are now a total of 2,121 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Ireland and 22 deaths to date. The number of cases has been doubling roughly every 4/5 days, which is somewhat better than was forecast at the start of the outbreak. Up to last Wednesday, 419 patients had been hospitalised with the disease and 59 of these had been admitted to ICU.
Given the shortage of ICU beds hospitals are now operating at close to capacity and the government has just issued its strictest restrictions yet, basically saying everyone should stay at home for the next two weeks except for the purposes of buying essential food or medical supplies or a much more tightly defined list of essential work.
It is a lockdown in all but name, and pretty much the last shot in the governments locker - one last attempt to "flatten the curve" and, if possible, suppress the disease. Compliance, so far, seems to be high. The first death of a healthcare worker is adding to the sombre mood, although the situation doesn't seem to be quite as chaotic as in the UK's NHS, h/t ThatBritGuy.
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 26th, 2020 at 10:49:27 PM EST
The table above is continuously updated here and by John Hopkins University here.
The pandemic patterns are changing, with the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases now in the USA, despite a lack of a timely and comprehensive testing regime. Italy and Spain are still leading the mortality column with France also moving up the table. On a per capita basis, Luxembourg and Switzerland actually have a higher confirmed infection rate per million inhabitants and there is some hope that the rate of new infections is actually beginning to slow down in Italy where new infections have increased by less than 10% per day for the past four days in a row.
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Mar 24th, 2020 at 10:45:56 PM EST
The Irish government, led by the most conservative major party in the state, has instituted a number of emergency measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic:
- The government will fund 70% of workers salaries up to a maximum of €410 per week tax free in businesses effected by the crisis.
- Social welfare, unemployment, and sick pay is increased from €203 per week to €350 p.w.
- The government is taking over all private hospitals and incorporating them into the public hospital system for the duration of the crisis.
- A rent freeze and ban on evictions.
- The cost of these measures is estimated to be €3.7 Billion over the next 12 weeks - greater than the total annual budget surplus estimated prior to the crisis.
by Frank Schnittger
Mon Mar 23rd, 2020 at 11:53:13 AM EST
Update [2020-3-23 23:40:41 by Frank Schnittger]:Table updated
You can find the table above constantly updated here, where you can also sort it by each column header.
A number of factors can influence the spread and mortality rate of the pandemic in different countries:
- Timing - the number of days since the first case in a region
- Preparedness - the ability of local hospital facilities to cope with rapidly elevating demand
- Timing and effectiveness of counter-measures taken - principally non-pharmaceutical interventions like the closure of schools, pubs, restaurants, non essential business contacts, sporting events, and the practice of self isolation, physical distancing and personal hygiene.
- Level of testing and contact tracing
- Demographics - older people (and men), especially with pre-existing serious medical conditions, are disproportionately at risk
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 19th, 2020 at 11:58:56 AM EST
Letter to the Editor
A Chara,
If I were charged with murder (and guilty as hell) I would hire your columnist, Newton Emerson, as my defence attorney. Based on his article "Sectarian split over school closures feels ominous", Opinion, 19 March, he would have even me believing in my innocence.
The whole point of the WHO (and now belatedly, the UK) expert advice is that the infection rate will increase exponentially until herd immunity is achieved unless there are radical interventions on the part of governments and peoples.
The further one is up that exponential curve, the more difficult it becomes to isolate and control the rate of infection. Exponentially more difficult. So days and even hours matter, and two weeks is an age.
There is , in any case, no evidence to support Newton's assertion that N. Ireland and the UK are two weeks behind Ireland in the course of this pandemic.
To try to cast those who sounded the alarm when they realised how serious this was all getting as engaging in sectarian politics is itself sectarian politics of the most crass kind almost equivalent to accusing Jews of alarmism and racism when they warned of Nazi atrocities.
Globally there could indeed be millions of casualties - and thousands in Ireland - before this is all over, and then those who delayed and procrastinated over essential measures will indeed be in the dock. Guilty as charged, I'm afraid.
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Mar 17th, 2020 at 11:45:58 PM EST
I don't agree with his economic policies, and his party has just been roundly defeated in a general election by a people yearning for change. But every now and then it's nice to see some basic competence in your leaders. Leo Varadkar didn't announce any radical new measures in this broadcast to the nation and to the world on St. Patrick's day, but he got this speech just about right. The detail can come later.
For the full text, see here.
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Mar 12th, 2020 at 03:14:27 PM EST
The Covid-19 crisis is reaching a new phase in Ireland even though, to date, there has only been 61 confirmed cases and one death of an elderly patient with a pre-existing terminal illness. Update [2020-3-12 22:52:5 by Frank Schnittger]: there were 27 new cases in the Republic and 2 in N. Ireland today, resulting in a new total of 90 cases.[/update] The government has just announced a nationwide closure of schools, colleges and child care facilities and strongly recommended all indoor meetings of more than 100 people and outdoor meetings of more than 500 people should be cancelled.
This is in stark contract to the UK where the Cheltenham racing festival with many thousand spectators is going ahead as I write, and also to N. Ireland where no such measures have been announced despite the fact that the outbreak there is at least as serious as in the rest of the island.
The government have also announced a €3.1 Billion emergency aid package for people and businesses impacted by the crisis. On a per capita basis this amounts to almost €630 per person,which compares compares with just €21 in the US and €124 in Italy. Talks on government formation and all meetings considered non-essential have been postponed and President Trump has announced a travel ban on all Europeans from the Schengen area (excluding Ireland and the UK).
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Feb 27th, 2020 at 02:35:27 PM EST
Both the EU and the UK have now published their mandates for their negotiating teams on their future relationship. As might be expected at this stage, they couldn't be further apart, and some "expectations management" is no doubt involved. But neither is there anything to suggest that my central expectation of a no deal Brexit at the end of 2020 will not, in fact, come to pass.
by Frank Schnittger
Sat Feb 22nd, 2020 at 12:08:26 AM EST
There has been a lot of hot and heavy commentary in the Irish media as to who has and has not got the "right" or "responsibility" to form a government following the inconclusive Irish general election result where three parties, Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, got between 25 and 21% of the vote.
Most of this has been legitimate banter between partisan supporters trying to portray their party in the most favourable light and place it in the best position to either lead a government or force the other two parties to break their electoral pledges and form a most uncomfortable coalition government.
The received wisdom is that whichever party ends up leading the opposition will be able to exploit the discomfiture of the coalition parties and clean up at the next election. Few believe Ireland's public health care and housing problems will be solved in the next few years, but that won't prevent the next government from copping the blame when they fail to do so.
But lest the naive be disillusioned by the whole process, I have provided some context in a letter published as their lead letter by the Irish Independent:
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Feb 13th, 2020 at 02:39:14 PM EST
My highest probability expectation both before and after the Irish general election is that it is unlikely it will be possible to form a stable government from the configuration of parties the electorate have thrown up. It took 70 days to form a government in 2016 when Fine Gael had 50 seats, and that government was only possible because Fianna Fail, with 44 seats, agreed a "confidence and supply" arrangement with Fine Gael under which it would abstain on votes of confidence in order to allow a government to be formed.
It is generally agreed that the confidence and supply arrangement did Fianna Fail no favours with the electorate as it was unable to pose as a radical alternative to Fine Gael, having facilitated the broad thrust of Government policy over the past 4 years. Although Fine Gael were the biggest losers (-15 seats), Fianna Fail also lost 6 seats with Sinn Féin (+14) and the Greens (+10) the biggest beneficiaries.
The only other time a major opposition party has facilitated a government in office was in 1987, when then Fine Gael leader, Alan Dukes announced his "Tallaght Strategy" to facilitate a Fianna Fail government basically implementing Fine Gael policies. That, too, didn't end well for Fine Gael.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Feb 9th, 2020 at 11:45:05 AM EST
Ireland went to the polls yesterday, and the counting of votes began at 9.00 am this morning. Counting is a labour intensive manual process, and given the complexities of the multi-seat, single transferable vote system can take some days to complete. Early indications are that the poll was quite high given the inclement weather conditions and that the pre-poll indications of a surge to Sinn Fein are being borne out by the actual results.
Last night's exit poll indicated a statistical tie between the main three parties but the earliest indications today are that this may understate the performance of Sinn Fein who appear likely to top the poll in a lot of constituencies. They will rue their decision to run only 42 candidates, however, which will put a ceiling on how well they can do. The exit poll makes for some fascinating reading as it allows a demographic analysis of who voted how. Sinn Fein appear to be well ahead in every age group bar the 65+ demographic.
Health, Housing, Homelessness, Pension age and climate change were the issues influencing most voting decisions with Brexit and immigration cited by only 1% of voters as the most important issue influencing their vote. 65% of voters regard increased expenditure on public services as more important than reduced taxation, and 63% stated they had not benefited personally from the upturn in the economy.
The first first count results are expected this afternoon, and I will update this diary as more results come in.
by Frank Schnittger
Mon Feb 3rd, 2020 at 03:39:35 PM EST
Sinn Féin level with Fianna Fáil at 24% in latest opinion poll
Sinn Féin has surged ahead of Fine Gael and is tying with Fianna Fáil for the highest vote among political parties, according to the latest opinion poll published on Sunday.
The Business Post/Red C poll puts Sinn Féin at 24 per cent, up 3 per cent on the previous survey by the same pollsters a week earlier.
Fianna Fáil is down 2 per cent to 24 per cent and Fine Gael down 2 per cent to 21 per cent.
In the space of the two surveys, Fine Gael is down 9 per cent and Sinn Féin up 11 per cent, confirming a trend in other polls.
Sinn Féin secured their first seat in Dail Eireann in modern times in 1997 with 2.5% of the vote. Since then their vote and seats has increased steadily to 14% and 23 seats in 2016. Their fortunes seemed to be waning with the failure of the Northern Ireland institutions and their failure to have any influence on the Brexit debate in Westminster. However since the Brexit withdrawal deal was done and the N. Ireland institutions were restored their standing in the polls has skyrocketed in inverse proportions to the fortunes of Fine Gael.
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Jan 31st, 2020 at 12:25:42 AM EST
It is with very mixed feelings that I approach Brexit day. On the one hand I have argued strenuously and at length that Brexit is in the interests of neither the UK nor the EU, and plays into the hands of ultra-nationalists, disaster capitalists, global corporations, and great power imperialists. On the other hand I have tired of the seemingly perpetual whingeing, prevarication, lying, and sheer incompetence of successive UK administrations and their oppositions.
From a purely practical point of view, it is reasonable to hope that the EU institutions will operate more coherently, cohesively and efficiently without the continual disruptions caused by UK participation. The loss of 73 mostly far right and often disruptive UK MEPs will be no loss at all. It his high time the EU focused on other priorities and for Brexit and Brexiteers to leave the stage.
Although EU Chief negotiator Barnier and Trade Commissioner Hogan will continue to be centrally involved in UK EU trade negotiations, I expect that issue will gradually decline in the list of EU priorities and the UK's baneful influence on EU foreign policy will also diminish. A lot still depends on whether President Trump is re-elected, or not, but it is relations and trade with the US, China, Russia and third world countries that will gradually come to dominate the EU agenda.
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Jan 14th, 2020 at 08:46:08 PM EST
An Taoiseach Leo Varadker has called a general election in Ireland for February 8th. - in the immediate wake of Brexit actually happening at the end of January and the devolved institutions being restored in N. Ireland following an agreement between the N. Ireland parties and the British and Irish governments.
The timing is significant for a number of reasons. Fine Gael's slim Dail majority had become increasingly precarious as the "confidence and supply" agreement with Fianna Fail had faltered and as various independent and other TD's threatened to withdraw their support. A no-confidence motion in Health Minister Simon Harris could well have been carried and would have further high-lighted the governments greatest failing while in office.
Leo Varadker and deputy prime Minister (Tanaiste) Simon Coveney are widely seen as having done a good job on Brexit and so it was in their interest to hold the election while Brexit was still high on the news and political agenda. When the two governments and the N. Ireland parties finally agreed to the restoration of the N. I. Assembly and Executive after a 3 year hiatus, another important item on the Government's to do list was ticked off.
That said, a win for Leo Varadker and Fine Gael is anything but a done deal. Fine Gael have led the government for almost exactly nine years since 2011 and it is rare for any Irish government to win 3 elections in a row. There is considerable yearning for change in the country, despite full employment, the economy growing at c. 5% p.a., and the government actually running a surplus. Failures in public housing, healthcare, and transport policy have sapped the electorate's patience and homelessness, rapid housing rent increases, hospital waiting lists and impossible commuting times are likely to figure prominently in the campaign.
by Frank Schnittger
Tue Dec 31st, 2019 at 07:25:56 PM EST
For many people 2019 was a year to forget and the decade of the 2010's wasn't much better. What were your highs and lows, funniest moments, and greatest achievements or regrets?
by Frank Schnittger
Thu Dec 26th, 2019 at 01:11:47 PM EST
House clad in 120MM insulation and with new ventilation grills visible near the apex of the roof.
The last 6 months have been a crazy busy time for me and my family as we have a new baby in the house and are (hopefully) moving towards the end of a major home renovation. My eldest daughter, her partner and new baby have been forced to move into the family home by Dublin's crazy house prices and it has given us the opportunity to have a major rethink about how the family home should function.
I could no longer justify having a detached house largely to myself, and so their move is very welcome from my point of view. They have injected a new energy into the house and increased our ambition for what the house can achieve. A government deep-retrofit scheme has enabled us to improve its energy rating from a very average (for a 1980's house) D rating to A1 - the highest possible, and it is now apparently one of the ten most energy efficient older houses in Ireland.
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Dec 15th, 2019 at 09:12:25 AM EST
It's All over Now, Baby Blue
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out, the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, baby blue
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
The sky, too, is folding under you
And it's all over now, baby blue
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
Your empty-handed army is all going home
You lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it's all over now, baby blue
Leave your stepping stones behind now, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, baby blue...
Bob Dylan 1965
by Frank Schnittger
Fri Dec 13th, 2019 at 12:51:53 PM EST
So the Opinion polls weren't so far off after all, with the Labour Party losing votes to all the other parties, but, given the idiocies of the First Past the Post electoral system, only the Conservatives and SNP reaped the benefits in terms of seats:
As was to be expected, all the "centrist" MPs who left or were thrown out of the Labour and Conservative parties and stood as independents, ChangeUK or Lib Dems lost their seats. The two party (+ regional/nationalist parties) system reigns supreme. There is no room for dissidence or doubt. You must follow one major party leader or the other. The system is designed to promote polarisation and conflict. Contrary to reports of unprecedented queues, turnout at 67% was down 1.5% on 2017.
by Frank Schnittger
Wed Dec 11th, 2019 at 01:23:19 AM EST
Letter to the Editor published in the Irish Times.
A leader for leavers and remainers?
A chara, - Fintan O'Toole buys into the media propagated myth that Jeremy Corbyn is some sort of far-out radical lefty who wants to revolutionise UK society (Weekend Review, December 7th).
But Corbyn gained this reputation for opposing imperialism, Apartheid, and the Iraq invasion; and supporting LGBT rights, a united Ireland, and radical measures to combat climate change before it was either fashionable or mainstream in UK politics to do so.
What were once radical positions are now mainstream, and since his election as leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn has consistently adopted mainstream, centrist and even establishment positions.
He campaigned for remain in the 2016 referendum, he accepted the result as democratically binding, and he tried to keep both leavers and remainers on board within the Labour Party by adopting a "soft" Brexit policy whereby the UK would retain a close economic relationship with the EU while ending the political union.
It wasn't Corbyn who said f**k business, starve the Irish into submission, Muslims are bank-robbers and letterboxes, the EU is the new Soviet Union, or the Brexit negotiations would be the easiest trade negotiation of all time; and yet he is the extremist with a limited grasp of reality?
His domestic policies are aimed at reversing years of Tory austerity policies which have resulted in inequality, poverty, and deprivation unprecedented in modern times. If it was possible to fund decent health, educational and public housing policies in highly indebted post-war 1950s Britain, why is that such a radical idea now?
Corbyn may or may not lose Thursday's election, but if he does it will be due in large measure to the success of the oligarch-owned UK media in demonising him, with supposedly "enlightened" commentators such as Fintan O'Toole in tow.
Fintan O'Toole accuses him of being uninterested in power, but that is because he wants to restore power - and a decent quality of life - "to the many, not just the few".
At a time when the United Kingdom has never been so divided, is not a leader who tries to accommodate both leavers and remainers, unionists and nationalists, north and south not precisely what the UK needs right now? - Yours, etc,
FRANK SCHNITTGER
by Frank Schnittger
Sun Dec 8th, 2019 at 01:53:46 AM EST
I used to write quite a lot about US politics - about 65 stories on the European Tribune alone. And then Trump got elected and I could face it no longer. Say what you like about the legitimacy of his election, but the very fact that a guy like that could get elected doesn't fill me with much hope for the USA as an advanced polity. And why write about him when so many there are much more qualified to do so?
I came of age politically through meeting some South African anti-Apartheid activists who inspired me to do my masters thesis on Apartheid. I couldn't bring myself to visit their country until Mandela was freed and elected President. I did not want to become complicit in the Apartheid regime by visiting the country while I would still enjoy the privileges of a white European under Apartheid. I feel almost as bad about visiting the USA now: lots of great people, but the system absolutely sucks.
And now, having written 170 stories on Brexit, I am beginning to wonder whether my interest in writing about the UK will survive a Boris Johnson victory in this weeks general election. Any country which could vote for Boris Johnson as its leader has to be seriously f*cked up... And yet all you hear and read in the media commentary about the election is of self-proclaimed former Labour voters deciding to vote for Boris because they can't stand Corbyn.
What is it they can't stand about Corbyn when he has been (a relative) voice for moderation and reason in an increasingly dysfunctional, corrupt and disintegrating political system?
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